R. MacKenzie Lewis has been an arranger, composer, pianist, and music director in South East Michigan for nearly two decades. In addition to being the band leader with Ann Arbor’s own band Accidentally Hip, Lewis is the composer and music director for Eastern Michigan University’s School of Communication, Media, and Theatre Arts and a lecturer and accompanist with the School of Music and Dance. Some favorite theatre projects outside of university life include music directing and orchestrating the national tour and Off-Broadway premiere of The Berenstain Bears LIVE! in Family Matters, the Musical; Gypsy at the Hangar Theatre in New York (Broadway World Award for Best Music Direction); A Little Night Music at the Performance Network (Wilde Award for Best Music Direction); Legally Blonde at MSU (Pulsar Award for Best Music Direction); Irrational (Composer, Wilde Award for Best New Script); and Romance in Hard Times with William Finn at the Barrington Stage Co. He also composed music for Wings of Ikarus, Jason Invisible, and Mockingbird (two Helen Hayes nominations), all of which were commissioned and premiered at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.. Lewis has also composed the musicals: Video Games: The Rock Opera, Treasure Island, Pinocchio, A Very British Christmas, Sugar Plum Panto, The Elves and the Schumackers, DJ Whittington – A Hip-Hop Panto, and Soaring on Black Wings, a world premiere with Ben Vereen.